More overnight rain and early-morning clouds have now ceded the day to clearer skies and a rising heat. It won’t be anywhere near as oppressively hot as last week, but it still feels like the heart of summer.
Which is fitting, since it is that time of the season here, or at least it used to be. The amounts of leaves already gone gold give the lie to the notion that it might still be true now, but we recognize that it’s not an issue of natural seasonal change, but of record drought and climate collapse.
Of course, we might yet see a little more rain today; on all sides, rising above the horizon are a mix of thunderheads and thin expanses of white. But the vault above us is a bright turquoise blue, and we are held in the arc of the sky of an alpine-desert summer now.
Through yesterday, the extended forecast for the next fifteen days was for intermittent but daily rain — in other words, a natural monsoonal pattern for this place and time of year. As of this morning, all that has changed, with predictions showing precious little chance of precipitation for most of that period, but a rising mercury to go with it. At this point, there’s nothing to do but wait and see, because we know how conditions here can change in the blink of an eye or the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, and we have to be prepared for whatever arises with each new day’s sun [or with its setting, since we’ve had more night rains this year than in all the years I’ve lived here combined].
Today’s featured work, an all-new pair of earrings completed by Wings a couple of weeks ago, is a perfect fit for conditions here today — bright blue skies at the center of wing-like arcs of iridescent, cloud-veiled silvery light. It’s a vintage-style pair, wrought partly in an old traditional style, but given Wings’s own inimitable twist; it’s also a pair that grew out of another, but we’ll get to that in a moment. From its description in the Earrings Gallery here on the site:
Held In the Arc of the Sky Naja-Style Earrings
Our world is held in the arc of the sky, in the embrace of the wingéd spirits of the light. With these vintage-style earrings in a compound-crescent design, Wings honors the classic naja motif while giving it his own inimitable twist. Each giant hoop is formed of sterling silver, saw-cut in to a perfect medallion, then an internal series of embracing arcs saw-cut freehand out of its center, creating the appearance of wings held upward in an embrace, a naja pendant suspended from their meeting point, and in the negative space, a figurative being, arms similarly raised upward as though to hold earth and sky at once. The “wings” are joined together at their base by a single round cabochon of natural high-grade Sleeping Beauty turquoise, each tiny Skystone set into a plain low-profile bezel. Slender sterling silver jump rings fused to the top at the reverse hold sterling silver coil-and-ball-bead French wires. Earrings are 2″ across in all directions, excluding wires; turquoise cabochons are 1/4″ across (all dimensions approximate).
Sterling silver; Sleeping Beauty turquoise
$625 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I love this pair. They’re big and bold, two inches across and two inches down, giving them the feel of giant vintage hoops, and yet they’re incredibly lightweight, and very comfortable to wear. I said above that this pair grew out of another, although the reverse is also true, even more literally, perhaps: The other pair, in quite tangible terms, grew out of them.
Go to the link and look: Do you see how yet? If not, visualize the pair at the link turned upside-down, then look at this pair again. Do you see?
Two giant medallions of sterling silver; two pairs of earrings; nothing gone to waste.
The cabochons in this pair are genuine Sleeping Beauty turquoise, pulled from the earth of that land the rest of the world knows by its colonial name of “Arizona.” These are small but stellar specimens, manifest in the perfectly clear blues that are the hallmark of that mine’s material, the deep blue that is the color of the western desert sky at mid-morning.
It’s a little bit of comfort in the daily hours, just as the silver crescents evoke the moon that we saw for the first time this cycle last night: We are held in the arc of the sky, and while there is work to do to save earth and climate, we still have the luxury of knowing that in our corner of the cosmos, everything remains in its place.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
